Brief overview of the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung), 19 March 2009
Fifteen years on and still no equal pay for women in Germany
Even with the same education, at the same age, in the same profession and at the same place of work, women still earn 12 per cent less than their male colleagues. That wage inequality between women and men has hardly changed in Germany over the last 15 years is shown by a study carried out jointly by the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, IAB) and the University of Konstanz. The analysis reveals the following fact: lower remuneration of women is less a consequence of financial inequality on a case-by-case basis, but above all a result of social structures that allow women less frequent access to well-paid jobs than men.
On average, the wages and salaries of female employees working full-time in the old Federal States in 2006 were roughly 24 per cent lower than those of men. Here the fact that men and women opt for different professions plays a noticeable role – but considerably less than generally assumed. The study reveals that, even within the same profession, women earn about 21 per cent less than men. When people with the same education, with the same profession, of the same age and at the same pace of work are compared, the wage difference is 12 per cent, according to IAB calculations.
Overtime, hierarchies, and interruptions in employment biographies also require to be taken into account
The wage gap of 12 per cent that has been ascertained can partially be attributed to factors that have not yet been grasped statistically: for instance, the study only compared daily earnings, while men tend to do much more overtime than women; as a result, part of the wage difference is accounted for by the actual working hours undertaken. A further factor is the hierarchical structure within professions: men tend to become group or team leaders more often than women and are in turn better paid. However it is primarily the long absences from work and periods of part-time work undertaken by women that have an effect on their earnings – mainly because of bringing up children. As Hermann Gartner from IAB suggests, "If wage inequality is to be effectively reduced, interruptions in paid employment must be more evenly distributed between women and men. For example, legal entitlement to childcare leave could be divided between mothers and fathers".
Wage inequality is especially inflexible in Germany
According to Gartner, "wage inequality between men and women in Germany is more inflexible than in other countries". All countries in the European Union in which wage inequality was over-proportionally high according to EU statistics of 1995 were successful in decreasing wage inequality by 2005 – all, that is, except one: while it is true that differences in wages in Germany dropped in the 1990s, they have risen again since the turn of the century. Gartner attributes this development above all to the growth of the low-wage sector and a general increase in wage inequality. As women work in this low-wage sector over-proportionally often, the ever-increasing gap in incomes is affecting them especially strongly.
A diagram illustrating wage inequality in Germany "Wage inequality between men and women" can be downloaded at http://doku.iab.de/grauepap/2009/ep.pdf .